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Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Documentary filmmaker John Borowski takes us on a tour of the
extreme end of serial killer fanatics in his new film by presenting roughly ten
minute slots to 13 different characters who have each dedicated a large part of
their life to the history and surrounding culture of serial killers. From
academics who write about the detailed psychology of the killers; to collectors
of convicted killers disturbing art that they paint in prison; to musicians who
write songs solely about killers and their crimes.Each is given a chance to explain their
interest in the subject, with one of the final interviewees being Borowski
turning the camera on himself.

Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Texas is a violent place.It doesn’t matter whether you form your
opinions through current affairs and broadcast news, or gritty cinema; there is
clearly a lot of violence in Texas.

Bobby (Jeremy Allen White) is a high school graduate about to fulfill his
dream of escaping the rural farmland and heading to the big city with his best
friend Sue (Mackenzie Davis), whom
he secretly loves.The only problem is
that Sue is dating his other best friend B.J. (Logan Huffman), who is being left behind to work on the farm with
the aggressive thug Giff (Mark
Pellegrino).

Before they go away, B.J. convinces his
two friends to travel to Mexico for a last big holiday.Only when they return home he admits that he
stole the money to pay for it from Giff.When Giff finds out (in an amazingly tense scene) he tells them that
they must steal from local racketeers in order to pay him back.B.J. then concocts a ‘foolproof’ plan that
comes under strain when he suspects his two friends of hiding a secret from
him…

Friday, August 8, 2014

Bostonian John Slattery, the ‘silver fox’ Roger Sterling from Mad Men has written and directed his
first feature film and packed it full of his celebrity friends.Somewhere between a gritty drama and a
classic comedy farce, the action takes place in a tough inner city area known
as God’s Pocket.

Mickey (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is a blue-collar Philadelphia meat-worker
who spends his life drinking in the same bar, betting on the same horses and
committing the same petit crime, such as stealing lorries filled with meat.One day he learns that his antagonistic
stepson Leon (Caleb Landry Jones)
has been suspiciously killed at a construction site, so he has to raise the
money for the perfect funeral that his wife Jeanie (Christina Hendricks) wants for him.

Meanwhile a cynical and alcoholic
journalist (Richard Jenkins) writes
about the death, and other unsavory aspects of the area known as God’s Pocket,
and begins to spend time with Jeanie in order to investigate what really
happened to her son.At the same time,
Mickey’s friend Arthur (John Turturro)
is helping him raise some illegitimate funds for a memorial whilst dodging his
own loan shark.Whilst the journalist
tries to uncover what happened to Leon, Mickey has to figure out a way of
looking after the corpse of his stepson and prepare him for a funeral…

Last night, the Roundhouse Theatre in
Camden hosted the second of two evenings screening of Paul Thomas Anderson’s
epic There Will Be Blood to a crowd
of thousands.Although the film itself
is a masterpiece, the crowds were primarily there to witness the London
Contemporary Orchestra perform Jonny Greenwood’s unforgettable score as a live
accompaniment to the picture. This was a two-night world premiere of an event that is set to travel across the world.

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

How would you remember what you had to
do with your day or where you had just been, or the relationship with the
person who has come to visit you?How
could you stay in touch with your own personality?All of these questions are raised in the
touching documentary from director Toby
Amies, The Man Whose Mind Exploded.

The eponymous hero with the ‘exploded’
mind is Tony Banwell, aka Drako
Zarharzar, a 76-year-old Brighton man that developed acute anterograde
amnesia from a number of car accidents and comas that prohibits him from
creating any new memories.This means
that he can tell stories from his past and laugh and joke about his immediate
surroundings, but cannot remember anything after a short while and has to live
totally “in the now”.

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Is it possible for anyone to reinvent
the haunted house story? No.Is it
possible to learn from the genre and have some fun anyway? Definitely.Latest UK horror filmBlackwood tries to do
just that with a tongue-in-cheek rural ghost story with a few modern twists.

The movie lifts most of its opening
scenes directly from The Shining.It begins with Ben Marshall (Ed Stoppard) moving his wife Rachael (Sophia Myles) and son Harry (Isaac Andrews) into a big spooky house
called Blackwood so that he can continue his career as a University history
professor. The house is big enough for the son to run round exploring and
continually getting lost in the nearby woods, where he meets Jack (Russell Tovey) a creepy neighbor who
Ben immediately distrusts.

It is revealed that Ben is returning to
work after an emotional breakdown and that he has an obsessive mind, which soon
turns to the previous occupant of the house that has left mysterious paintings
behind.After a few nights in the house
Ben begins to have visions involving his son and the neighbor Jack.This leads him to turn his historical,
obsessive mind to finding out what happened in the house and local area and
what implications it might have for his family.

Monday, August 4, 2014

The symbolic place of the mother-in-law
continues to hold a strange cultural position in Britain.Relegated for years as the butt of jokes from
seaside comedians such as Les Dawson they continue to be seen as one of the
inevitable burdens that couples accept as part of a marriage.This stereotype is a harsh (indeed
misogynist) caricature of reality and feels like a ‘70s television/sitcom
cliché more than a cinematic one.But a difficult
question can often create the most profound narratives:What would you do if your partner died and
left behind a lonely but vulnerable elderly mother that resented you?First time director Hong Khaou probes this question in his new drama Lilting with masterful tact and insight.

Kai (Andrew Leung) has recently relocated his Chinese-speaking mother Junn
(Pei-pei Cheng) into a residential
home in London whilst he makes preparations to help her move into his flat with
his boyfriend Richard (Ben Whirshaw).
Just before he can tell her he is killed in a car accident leaving the
profoundly grief stricken Richard to try and help Junn integrate more with the
world around her.

Richard discovers that Junn has met Alan
(Peter Bowles) another resident of
the home so hires the help of translator Vann (Naomi Christie) to allow them to communicate.The narrative travels between Richard
desperately trying to engage with the melancholic and lonely older women, and
Kai and Richard as they had prepared to help her integrate more with London and
the world around her.